Flash Friday, the missing flash October files, Sympathy, windy, Boney in Flash Friday

Sympathy windy bony

The road climbed the bony spine of the something something hills or mountains; some local conceit. The maps came from a drug runner/junk man; some footpaths were scrawled in crayon. Winding up the boney spine the repurposed soccer van whined and coughed and patches of clear cut let the wind buffet us around, pushing us toward the rock face.

“The moon was a ghostly galleon, set on tempest seas …” The driver said.

His name was Joe or john or knackfor. People say things like “I never forget a name/ a face”. I don’t know, I never do nothing, not these days. These days when I shake a hand I’m sizing up how hard it’ll be to take a man down and how easy it’ll be to walk away from his broken shell.

“Everything went from bad to worse, money never changed a thing …” the woman riding shotgun said.

Again, I didn’t catch her name, and I wouldn’t recognize her if she washed her face. I thought about wanting to fuck her, it didn’t work so well. I mean I couldn’t do it, couldn’t work up the fantasy, couldn’t get a hard on. And yeah, if I was in one of those dumbass conversations I wouldn’t disagree with “You either fuck or get fucked” but that’s not about sex, not about the libido. I wanted a libido. Sure, doc Joe would tell me ‘that’s the sort of thing that’ll kill you’. Would tell as in used to say not will when I see him next. He’d also tell me ‘don’t take a dead guys advice on shit that’ll get you killed.’

Yeah, I wanted a libido, sympathy, empathy, compassion, anger, greed, humility, laughter. I know, all that shit will get you killed.

The driver dodged a body in the road right as the wind pushed, and the soccer mom minivan swiped the rock face hard, jolting me sideways and, losing momentum stopped the climb. The minivan sputtered and though she didn’t die, she didn’t have the heart to climb.

“We camp here tonight,” the driver said.

I would have to call him something else or leave; he wasn’t a driver any longer.

“Hey, where you going?”

“Up, East. Keep your fire small, try coasting down and jump starting the old gal, pop the clutch in second at about 20.”

I heard the almost words from both of them, arguments, logic, pleading, but they stayed that way; almost. Without turning around I raised a hand, a see-you-later hand. No one was going to see anyone later ever again. The wind howled sympathetically at my bad ear; it came out of the south, As long as I kept it in my bad ear I was heading right and had some harmony to my howling thoughts.